Faces Places (Visages, villages)

Co-documentary filmmakers Agnès Varda and JR meander around seldom seen rural locales beyond French urban boundaries; places off the tourist pilgrimage. Agnès explains they are, “meeting amazing people by chance.” While many of the narrated set-ups appear staged and timed to help the audience understand where we are and what we’re doing here, I will take the respected 88 year-old New Wave director at her word that the villages the duo stumble across are indeed happy accidents.

Varda and 33 year-old artist/muralist, JR, label themselves kindred spirits. Separated chronologically by 55 human years, they understand each other aesthetically. Driving around in JR’s van which looks like a Nikon camera gliding down dusty, ignored highways, the two artists seek inspiration. When they find it, they will add their unique touch and expression to it. In a salt factory, they paste pictures of the day and night shift crews reaching out for one another; almost touching except with a slight finger separation reminiscent of the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling. They paste pictures of regular, smiling folk who invade a failed housing development area turned ghost town for a weekend picnic. No use guessing what's next; expect the unexpected in the camera van.

Rather through serendipity or off-screen calculation, it is intriguing and quite fun to watch the pair touch upon contemporary issues regarding globalization and the effects of modern technology on vanishing ways of life. Appreciate the human symmetry where Agnès remembers the old lifestyles while JR ushers in the new. Happening upon a crumbling, defunct mining town, we find Jeanine, the sole resident left in an entire block of row houses which thousands of miners used to call home. Stiff-arming offers of government assistance to relocate and reintegrate with the rest of society, Jeanine steadfastly refuses saying all her memories are here. Agnès and JR paste house-sized images of the miners who used to toil underground and return home caked in soot and sweat.

As we are in rural territory, two farms pop up on screen; one sports agricultural fields while another operates as a goat milk farm. The farmer, proud to show off his technological marvel of a tractor says he, and only he, takes care of a 500 acre farm; a feat which used to employ many more hands. While Agnès and JR establish a narrative rhythm of talking about where they are and their ideas for the mural, they put their backs to us so we can all gaze at the scenery at the same time. Discovering farming is now an anti-social activity rather than collective teamwork, they cover the farmer’s barn with a pasted portrait of him, all alone.

The goats showcase humanity’s more hands-on interference in nature. The first goat farm burns off the animals’ horns when they are young so they avoid physical incidents later on as goats are prone to fight and dominate one another. A goat milk factory worker down the road in a more traditional setting is horrified to learn there are milkers burning off horns. Nature determined goats will wear horns on their heads and behave certain ways while in groups; who are we to change that?

These are just a few examples of Agnès and JR’s modern-day cultural exploration, but at only 89-minutes long, the film never overstays its welcome in any one place. Perhaps the most disconcerting encounter is one which never happens with fellow, and most famous, New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard. We never see him but he certainly makes his presence felt. Agnès keeps it mostly light as she persistently ribs JR for never taking off his sunglasses to truly look somebody in the eye, but while their camaraderie provides refreshing interludes between village projects, Faces Places soars when it captures today’s attitudes vs. yesterday’s mannerisms. At the conclusion of every mural, notice how the viewers turn their backs to the art to take a selfie. But who are any of us to judge this behavior, for Agnès says we, “express our imaginations on their turf.”